Dino vs.914, whats wrong with people Options

[geniusanthony]

Ok, so i am officially placing my first post (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/smilie_pokal.gif) and here are my thoughts...Our beloved teeners are in an engineering sense an identical car to the Ferrari Dino. I mean this in the sense that the were both budget minded sports cars of similar size and performance...I am refering to the -6 models for closest similarity. same layout and intended consumer.
That being said I challenge you all to think this over and lend us all your thoughts on this manner and now the $100,000 question, do you suppose that if we painted our cars red, wore funny hats and red members only jackets would our cars be equally desireable????

[lapuwali]

The premise you started with: the 914 and Dino are identical from an engineering perspective, is pretty far off the mark, too.

By that argument, you could class the FIAT X1/9, the Toyota MR2, and the Pontiac Fiero all in the same boat. Value is hardly set by "engineering perspective", and these cars all only share a mid-engined layout, and little else.

The Dino suspension shares little to nothing with the 914 layout. The 914 engine is longitudinal, where the Dino (and the others mentioned) are all transverse. Only the 914 is air-cooled. Only the 914 uses a flat-engine layout. Very different cars, hardly "close cousins".

As for value and desirability, Porsches have always been cheaper than Ferraris (and the Dino is a Ferrari to all but the worst snobs). Just look at the new and current prices for a 308 (Ferrari's cheapest model for years) and the 911s from the same year (NOT Porsche's entry model), and the 308 will generally be more expensive. Porsche's entry models from the 308 era are generally dirt cheap even in excellent condition. 924s are usually under $3K, and 944s under $5K. A 308 is 5-6 times that. Even the generally disliked 308 GT4 is worth a lot more than a clean 944, and approaches the price of a good 911SC.

None of this has to make any sense, btw. I've pointed out on this forum before that nice examples of once VERY desirable cars are often dirt cheap today. In the mid-80s every F1 driver owned a Mercedes 500SEC, and it was considered THE car to have by the Eurotrash set. Now, you can pick one up for under $5K, or less than the price of a really nice 914/4 (let alone a /6).